Jill DuffyDragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 PremiumDragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 is an extremely accurate dictation-transcription and voice command tool. With Dragon and your voice, you can control virtually any computer program, after getting over an acceptably small learning curve.

Extremely accurate. Super speedy. Real time hands-free transcription. Great tips and help menus. Improves the more you use it. Free upgrade from version 11.

Cons

Moderate learning curve. Pricey. Menus can quickly clutter screen.

Bottom Line

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 is an extremely accurate dictation-transcription and voice command tool. With Dragon and your voice, you can control virtually any computer program, after getting over an acceptably small learning curve.

Having tried a few lightweight voice control and automated transcription tools from other companies, such as Vlingo and Apple (in the iPhone 4S feature Siri), I have had the best success with Nuance, which makes the Dragon family of products, including smartphone apps Dragon Go! and Dragon Dictation. After several pleasantly surprising experience using Nuance's mobile apps, I was eager to try the full-featured desktop version, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium ($199, direct; or $99 for Home version). The software does not disappoint. Loaded with features that you didn't know you needed, Dragon NaturallySpeaking solves so many problems: it makes writing faster, relieves carpal tunnel syndrome and other mobility issues, creates closed-captioning for lectures, removes spelling anxiety, and on and on. Dragon is ripe for being co-opted for many purposes far beyond dictation/transcription.

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The hundred-dollar baseline price tag on Dragon keeps it from being an impulse buy, but if you've been seeking a solution to any of the above-named problems—or any other that could be solved by voice commands and real-time transcription—Dragon is a worthy investment.

Set UpI tested Dragon NaturallySpeaking on a PC running Windows XP (more on the system requirements below). The setup took less than 10 minutes, which included reading provided text for about four minutes to acclimate the software to my voice and accent. The program lets you choose your accent from a selection if you prefer, with options from Indian-accented English to Great Lakes region American English to Southern U.S. English.

To further help Dragon understand your vocabulary, you can opt for the program to read files in the My Documents folder or sent messages from Outlook so that it can better guess words that it might not understand off the bat, like proper nouns. You can also automate Dragon to read files stored in those two locations on a regular basis to refresh its list of personalized words.

Dragon in ActionWhen I fired up the software for the first time, I found it bizarrely intuitive. Rather than read all the details about how to get started, I was curious to see what would happen if I tried to wing it. Dragon pushed started offering tips immediately, like the location of a microphone icon to turn voice commands on and off. A vertical help bar appeared on the right side of my screen (you can move it, customize it, and turn it off) that automatically updated depending on the active window on my desktop to suggest the most common commands for that particular app. I jumped into Microsoft Word and watched Dragon pull up a list of tips and functions for using voice controls to do my word processing.

I had no problem flipping the microphone on and dictating. The hardest part was deciding what task I wanted to complete. I started by saying aloud some notes and ideas I had about Dragon itself. Every utterance appeared before my eyes with only the slightest lag. I'm no Henry Higgins, but I my elocution is clear enough, but I didn't find any need to put on a broadcaster voice for Dragon to nail every word. Speaking at a normal pace in a slightly hushed volume, I saw remarkable results. Dragon's accuracy cannot be beat, but even a scarily accurate computer transcriber doesn't know where to insert commas, quotation marks, and the like, so you have to train yourself to say "period" or "full stop" and all other punctuation. Formatting, like adding bold to a font, works with voice commands, too.

Experimenting some more, I tried commands like "select previous two words," and "go to end of line," darting my eyes to the right to peek at the list of tips when necessary for a little extra help. While there is a learning curve with Dragon, much of how you learn is fairly natural because of the way the help menus and tips are displayed. They're integrated onto the screen and appear alongside whatever program is active. The screen can feel cluttered rather quickly, but you can always turn off or adjust the help menus once you get the hang of Dragon NaturallySpeaking. The UI will also bump you desktop icons around, which made me a little nuts. If icons are obscured by the menus, Dragon will slide them over and into view. As a personal preference, I'd rather they remain hidden but exactly where I want them.

Dragon makes editing simple, too. Say "select comma," for instance, and Dragon will highlight every comma on the visible portion of the document, annotating each one with a superscript number. Say the number of the comma you want to change, and it's instantly highlighted and ready for your next move.

In addition to dictation, Dragon NaturallySpeaking can also perform functions in numerous applications (spreadsheets are popular among users) as well as read back to you whatever you've written. It works best in quiet environments, of course, but in my testing Dragon handled ambient noise fairly well.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium

Bottom Line: Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 is an extremely accurate dictation-transcription and voice command tool. With Dragon and your voice, you can control virtually any computer program, after getting over an acceptably small learning curve.

About the Author

Jill Duffy is a contributing editor, specializing in productivity apps and software, as well as technologies for health and fitness. She writes the weekly Get Organized column, with tips on how to lead a better digital life. Her first book, Get Organized: How to Clean Up Your Messy Digital Life is available for Kindle, iPad, and other digital forma... See Full Bio

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Sean Carroll is the managing editor of PCMag.com's Software and Internet team, which includes all consumer security reviews, game reviews, and SMB software and service reviews. He considers that to mean that he can browse the Internet at work with impunity; plus, he gets to play with the coolest software and games in the world. Before joining PCMag... See Full Bio

Bottom Line: Upgrading from McAfee Internet Security to McAfee Total Protection gets you a file encryption utility and extra licenses for the password manager. Unless you need those features, you may be better off with McAfee AntiVirus Plus.

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 P...

Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium

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